{"id":592,"date":"2021-11-26T20:27:02","date_gmt":"2021-11-27T01:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca\/extraocadsmhr\/?post_type=chapter&p=592"},"modified":"2022-02-14T19:06:28","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T00:06:28","slug":"why-universities-must-defend-democracy-short-introductory-article","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/extraocadsmhr\/chapter\/why-universities-must-defend-democracy-short-introductory-article\/","title":{"raw":"2b. \"Why universities must defend democracy\" (Short news article)","rendered":"2b. “Why universities must defend democracy” (Short news article)"},"content":{"raw":"

Introduction to the article \"Why universities must defend democracy<\/a><\/span>\"<\/span><\/h1>\r\nWestern countries like Canada and the U.S. have benefitted greatly from their democratic roots.\r\n\r\nHowever, democracy is not static. It shifts and changes, becoming increasingly democratic or less so. For example, when universal voting is jeopardized, everyone's ability to vote potentially becomes imperiled and weakening democracy's foothold.\r\n\r\nIn \"Why universities must defend democracy,\" author Henry Giroux reflects on some of the illiberal tendencies that have arisen in the U.S. in the wake of the Trump presidency.\r\n\r\nWhen one country with a long-standing and robust democracy becomes threatened, friends of democracy across the globe should also be concerned.\r\n\r\n
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Why universities must defend democracy<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\r\nHenry Giroux, The Conversation<\/em>,
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\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s signalling a danger that mimics the increasingly forgotten horrors of the 1930s.\r\n\r\nNeo-Nazis in the United States, and possibly those worldwide<\/span><\/a>, appear especially emboldened because they\u2019ve found a comfortable, if not supportive, place at the highest levels of the U.S. government.\r\n\r\nPresident Donald Trump\u2019s administration has included white supremacist sympathizers like Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller. All three embrace elements of the nefarious racist ideology that was on full display in Charlottesville.\r\n\r\nTrump\u2019s refusal to denounce their Nazi slogans and violence in strong political and ethical terms has suggested his own complicity with such movements<\/span>.<\/a>\r\n\r\nIt should surprise no one that David Duke, a former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, told the media in the midst of the violence in Charlottesville that white supremacists were \u201cgoing to fulfil the promises of Donald Trump<\/a><\/span>\u2026 to take our country back.\u201d\r\n

\u2018God bless him\u2019<\/h2>\r\nNor should it surprise anyone that Trump\u2019s silence delighted the far right.\r\n\r\nThe Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website, even had this to say<\/a><\/span>: \u201cNo condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt appears that the presence of Nazi and Confederate flags celebrating a horrendous history of millions lost to the Holocaust and slavery, of lynchings and church bombings, and the assassinations of Black civil rights leaders like Medgar Evans and Martin Luther King, Jr., did little to move Trump.\r\n\r\nCharlottesville has resurrected elements of a past that resulted in some of the worst crimes in human history. The ideology, values and institutions of a liberal democracy are once again under assault by those who don\u2019t believe in equality, justice and democracy.\r\n\r\nAll of these alarming developments raise serious questions about the role of higher education in a democracy.\r\n\r\nWhat role, if not responsibility, do universities have in the face of a new wave of authoritarianism?\r\n\r\nWhat purpose should education serve when rigorous knowledge is replaced by opinions, the truth is labelled \u201cfake news\u201d by the president of the United States and his devotees, unbridled self-interest replaces the social good and language operates in the service of fear, violence and a culture of cruelty?\r\n

Universities must hold up democratic ideals<\/h2>\r\nSurely, institutions of higher education cannot limit their role to training at a time when democracy is under assault around the world.\r\n\r\nColleges and universities must define themselves anew as a public good, a protective space for the promotion of democratic ideals, of the social imagination, civic values and a critically engaged citizenship.\r\n\r\nRenowned education professor Jon Nixon argues that education<\/a><\/span>\u00a0must be developed as \u201ca protected space within which to think against the grain of received opinion: a space to question and challenge, to imagine the world from different standpoints and perspectives, to reflect upon ourselves in relation to others and, in so doing, to understand what it means to assume responsibility.\u201d\r\n\r\nGiven the ongoing attack on civic literacy, truth, historical memory and justice, surely it\u2019s all the more imperative for colleges and universities to teach students to do more than master work-based skills.\r\n\r\nInstead, we must educate them to become intelligent, compassionate, critically engaged adults fully aware of the fact that without informed citizens, there is no democracy.\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s much more at stake here than protecting and opening the boundaries of free speech. There is the more crucial necessity to deepen and expand the formative cultures and public spheres that make democracy possible.\r\n\r\nEducators cannot forget that the struggle over democracy is about much more than the struggle over economic resources and power. It\u2019s also about language, agency, desire, identity and imagining a future without injustice.\r\n

Return to authoritarianism not far-fetched<\/h2>\r\nAs the historian Timothy Snyder has observed<\/span><\/a>, it\u2019s crucial to remember that the success of authoritarian regimes in Germany and other places succeeded, in part, because they were not stopped in the early stages of their development.\r\n\r\nThe events in Charlottesville provide a glimpse of authoritarianism on the rise and shine a spotlight upon the forces that are trying usher in a new and dangerous era, both in the United States and worldwide.\r\n\r\nWhile it may seem far-fetched to assume American-style totalitarianism will soon become the norm in the United States, a return to authoritarianism is clearly no longer the stuff of fantasy or hysterical paranoia.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s especially since its core elements of hatred, exclusion, racism and white supremacy have been incorporated into both the highest echelons of political power and throughout the mainstream right-wing media, especially Fox News and Breitbart.\r\n\r\nThe authoritarian drama unfolding in the United States includes the use of state force against immigrants<\/a><\/span>, right-wing populist violence against mosques and synagogues and attacks on Muslims, young Blacks and others who do not fit into the vile script of white nationalism.\r\n\r\nCharlottesville was just part of a larger trend of domestic terrorism and homegrown fascism that is on the upswing in the United States.\r\n\r\nTrump\u2019s administration, after all, has announced<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>it will no longer \u201cinvestigate white nationalists, who have been responsible for a large share of violent hate crimes in the Unites States.\u201d\r\n\r\nTrump has also lifted restrictions imposed by the Obama administration<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>in order to provide local police departments with military surplus equipment such as armed vehicles, bullet-proof vests and grenade launchers.\r\n\r\nThese actions accelerate Trump\u2019s law-and-order agenda, escalate racial tensions in cities that are often treated like combat zones and reinforce a warrior mentality among police officers.\r\n\r\nEqually telling is Trump\u2019s presidential pardon of Joe Arpaio<\/span><\/a>, the notorious white supremacist and disgraced former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. Not only did Arpaio engage in racial profiling, despite being ordered by the court to desist, he also had a notorious reputation for abusing prisoners in his Tent City, which he once called \u201ca concentration camp.\u201d\r\n

A nod to domestic terrorism<\/h2>\r\nThere is more at work here than Trump\u2019s endorsement of white nationalism; he\u2019s also sending a clear message of support for a culture of violence that both legitimizes and gives meaning to acts of domestic terrorism.\r\n\r\nWhat\u2019s more, there\u2019s a clear contempt for the rule of law. And there\u2019s also an endorsement not just for racist ideology, but for institutional racism and consequently the primacy of the race-based incarceration state<\/span>.<\/a>\r\n\r\nIn his various comments, tweets and policies, Trump has made clear that he does not see himself as the leader of the country, but as the head of a right-wing movement fuelled by rage, isolation, social atomization and communal disintegration, galvanized by a culture of fear and bigotry. He preys upon a populist hatred of democracy.\r\n\r\nAt the moment we\u2019re seeing a looming collapse of civic culture.\r\n\r\nA healthy democracy always struggles to preserve its ideals, values and practices. When taken for granted, justice dies, social responsibility becomes a burden and the seeds of authoritarianism flourish.\r\n\r\nWe may be in the midst of dark times, but resistance is no longer an option but a necessity.\r\n\r\nAnd educators have a particular responsibility to address this growing assault on democracy. Any other option is an act of complicity, and a negation of what it means for education to matter in a democratic society.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n
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Quiz<\/h2>\r\n

Quiz on \"Why universities must defend democracy<\/a><\/span><\/span>\"<\/strong>:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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